Senior Manager, AI/ML Engineering

Avalara is an AI-first company.

We expect every engineer, manager, and leader to actively leverage AI to enhance productivity, quality, innovation, and customer value. AI is embedded in our workflows, decision-making, and products — and success at Avalara requires embracing AI as an essential capability, not an optional tool.

What You'll Do

We are seeking an experienced Senior AI & Machine Learning Manager to lead our dynamic team in developing cutting-edge AI & ML solutions. This role is perfect for someone passionate about leveraging AI and ML, inspire creativity, and create impactful products. You will be responsible for our Generative AI systems and how we apply them at Avalara to simplify and scale tax compliance across our entire portfolio of products. Major initiatives currently involve creating conversational agents. As an integral part of our leadership team, you will have the opportunity to shape the future of our AI & ML initiatives, manage a talented team of AI professionals, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement strategic projects.

This role will report to Sr Director of AI & ML.

What Your Responsibilities Will Be

Lead and manage a team of AI&ML engineers, overseeing project lifecycles from conception to deployment, ensuring high-quality standards and timely delivery.

• Mentor and develop team members, providing guidance on technical challenges, career development, and professional growth opportunities.
• Stay abreast of the latest AI&ML technologies and methodologies, incorporating new and innovative approaches into our projects to maintain competitive advantage.
• Develop and execute our AI&ML strategy, aligning with the company's objectives, and ensuring the team's projects support this vision.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including product management, engineering, and design, to define project requirements, set priorities, and allocate resources effectively.
• Ensure operational excellence, implementing best practices in project management, software development, and quality assurance to optimize team performance and productivity.
• Manage stakeholder communications, providing regular updates on project status, key milestones, and any challenges or risks, ensuring alignment and support across the organization.

What You'll Need to be Successful

Specific Qualifications

• Proven expertise in Gen AI technologies and methodologies, with a strong portfolio of projects demonstrating your ability to apply these in solving complex problems.
• Experience with building and deploying to enterprise production environments APIs powered by AI & Machine Learning systems.
• Proficiency in programming languages relevant to AI & ML, such as Python, R, Java, Scala, C++ and familiarity with AI & ML frameworks and libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn).
• Experience with cloud computing platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and understanding of how to leverage these for scalable, secure, reliable distributed systems with complex workflows relying on AI & ML solutions.
• Strong background in data engineering and familiarity with database technologies, as well as, data processing / ETL pipelines and visualization tools.

General Qualifications

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related science field.
• A minimum of 10 years of experience in AI & ML with at least 5 years in a leadership or management position, overseeing technical teams.
• Excellent project management skills, with experience in agile methodologies.

This is a remote role.

How We'll Take Care of You

Total Rewards

In addition to a great compensation package, paid time off, and paid parental leave, many Avalara employees are eligible for bonuses.

Health & Wellness

Benefits vary by location but generally include private medical, life, and disability insurance.

Inclusive culture and diversity

Avalara strongly supports diversity, equity, and inclusion, and is committed to integrating them into our business practices and our organizational culture. We also have a total of 8 employee-run resource groups, each with senior leadership and exec sponsorship.

Learn more about our benefits by region here: Avalara North America

What You Need To Know About Avalara

We’re Avalara. We’re defining the relationship between tax and tech.

We’ve already built an industry-leading cloud compliance platform, processing nearly 40 billion customer API calls and over 5 million tax returns a year, and this year we became a billion-dollar business_._ Our growth is real, and we’re not slowing down until we’ve achieved our mission - to be part of every transaction in the world.

We’re bright, innovative, and disruptive, like the orange we love to wear. It captures our quirky spirit and optimistic mindset. It shows off the culture we’ve designed, that empowers our people to win. Ownership and achievement go hand in hand here. We instill passion in our people through the trust we place in them.

We’ve been different from day one. Join us, and your career will be too.

We’re An Equal Opportunity Employer

Supporting diversity and inclusion is a cornerstone of our company — we don’t want people to fit into our culture, but to enrich it. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, age, gender, national orientation, disability, sexual orientation, US Veteran status, or any other factor protected by law. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.